Best childcare option for 3yr old

[AlexPS1986]

Hi, my family's moving to Southfields in the next few months, and we have a bit of childcare dilemma, any advice / recommendations would be much appreciated!

My little one is turning 3 next week, currently spending full time (8-6) 5 days a week at a local nursery. I've contacted a couple of local nursery / preschool in the Southfields, looking for her to join a new nursery / preschool from August / September.

There's a primary school directly opposite the house, which has its own nursery. The fee is pretty cheap at ~£4,000+ per year. The facility looks great and the curriculum looks ok (I'll come to this a bit later). However the biggest draw back is that the nursery is only open 9-3.15pm, with no option of wraparound care or extended hours, and that it operates the school term so we need to find additional care during the holiday months.

Another option is for DD to go for a full time nursery offering 8-6 care 5 days a week. Cost is much more expensive at around £1,300 - £1,500 per month (after 15hr free childcare is considered). This would offer full time care for 50/51 weeks a year, hence a piece of mind, however it's obviously much more expensive, and the facilities I've seen don't look as good as the nursery at the primary school.

Both myself and wife works full time, whilst I can work from home 3-4 days a week and my wife 1-2 days, both of our jobs are demanding so tricky to multitask.

To make the matter more complex, our older daughter currently goes to a prep school, and we'd like to send the younger daughter to the same school. It's selective, and whilst having some sort of sibling policy, sibling entry is not guaranteed, therefore we want to find a place that does some teaching instead of just doing the basic childcare. Obviously none of the 2 options above 'preps' the children for a selective school, but we are looking for somewhere that as some more teaching involved.

Apologies for rambling on for a bit. What's everyone's opinion of 8-6 full time nursery vs. 9-3pm nursery + ad hoc childmind / nanny? I've been told by the school that some parents in the area use shared childminder, so if there's anyone from Southfields area who knows a reliable child minder, please let me know!

Thanks in advance!

The full time nursery is more practical, because you don't know if you will be able to find wrap around care for the school nursery.
You would also need to factor in the extra costs for wrap around care.
All nurseries and childcare settings are expected to follow the early years foundation stage, and will be inspected to ensure that they do so.

Agree full time nursery as finding before /after and holiday care will be hard and stressful

Not sure if nursery cost - maybe look for a cm

Any idea where they will go to school sept 24. If you can find a cm who pick ups from the school you hope to get them would be handy

You should get 30 funded hours if you both work. Is it an option to compress hours so you can each pick up at say 4, once a week?

If eldest goes to a prep school they probably earn too much to get 30 hours.

Ofsted registered settings all follow the EYFS it's not considered good practice to do work sheets and lessons in early years learning is supposed to be through play and building skills ready for school. So you're probably going to struggle to find a setting that accommodates this

If you both work then full time nursery 8-6 is the better option. You'll just have to swallow cost. It won't be forever.

Thanks yes you're absolutely right. We're not looking for something that 'preps' the little ones, but would prefer an environment where there's more structured play / learning / exploring. Do you think a school nursery would offer better learning environment than a private nursery? My DD1 went to a Montessori preschool where we lived before and really thrived there, lots of topics and resource to keep her little mind engaged.

It's not about the label of a type of setting but the individual ethos of each one. As an assessor I've been into many settings nursery, childminder, forest school Montessori etc. I've seen amazing examples of fabulous learning opportunities, warm and welcoming doing great jobs in preparing children and then I've seen awful ones ....you need to go and visit.